Movieworld Douglaston

242-02 61st Avenue,

Douglaston,
NY11362

Who owned the Douglastown theater. It seems weird that it basically closed the same week as the American in Parkchester before Bow Tie took over. For some reason I thought that the Douglaston was part of a small chain that included 2of the either the Sunnyside, Main St Flushing and Kew Gardens.

Not to mention that the sticky old theatres in Times Square had a hell of a lot of character. This dump represents the absolute nadir of movie theatre design and construction. The kind of generic concrete bunker shopping center multiplexes that were cheaply spackled together in the late ‘70’s and early '80’s all over the country.

I’m not sure why there’s so much enmity directed towards this theater. I’ve always been fascinated by its unique location underneath an elevated shopping center. It’s not in an awful state of disrepair and the lobby has a pleasant retro theater/lounge look to it. The place is certainly better than the old seedy Times Square theaters with “sticky” seats. I love how people wax poetic about those kinds of places when they don’t have to live or work anywhere near them.

I suppose I can’t argue with that, RobertR. The closest theater would probably be the single screen cinema in the North Shore Towers – which creatively books multiple films by alternating show times throughout the day. Otherwise, you have to go to the 6 screen plex behind the Bay Terrace shopping center or travel all the way to Valley Stream for the Green Acres or Sunrise Cinemas multiplexes. Still, if I lived in the area, I’d make the trip to some other theater!

The only good thing about Movieworld is that it’s an open theatre for people to go to until something better is built in the vicinity. Look at Brooklyn there are almost no theatres left, even a subpar complex like Movieworld would make money in the right location.

Warren… I assume you were being facetious in your last post, otherwise I’d love to know who said that the grand lobby of this dump was modelled after the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater! For starters, that person would never be allowed to use the word “grand” again! Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in the least bit grand about this place. But, I suspect you are well aware of that fact.

I actually drove over to the theater that very afternoon that I read your post to see if maybe I had been too harsh on the place. I had my digital camera with me and was able to snap a few photos of the exterior plus a few of the lobby through the glass entrance doors. Not the greatest images, but I didn’t feel like asking for permission (nor do I think it would have been granted) to walk past the ticket taker to get some better shots.

The layout is pretty common, with the candy counter being the focal point of the large lobby. As you walk in the entrance, the box office is immediately to your left (you can make out some customers purchasing tickets in the 4th photo down). Once you get your tickets, you turn to the right and immediately have your stub ripped before entering the lobby (you can see the ticket takers station in the 5th photo down). I spoke briefly with the ticket taker who informed me that the place was completely refurbished within the last 2 years and it does look like the lobby floor is new and the appointments spiffed up a bit. If there were any replicas of the hand and foot prints of the stars ala Grauman’s (which I don’t recall at all, honestly), they seem to have been removed as part of the overhaul. At the far left end of the lobby (I couldnt' get a shot of this) there is also a chain pizza cafe outlet as an adjunct to the candy counter. And they serve Starbuck’s coffee.

No amount of renovations, however, could have imbued any sort of charm in the screening rooms. I don’t think I’ll ever revisit this particular theater as a paying customer.

Next to the recently demolished Cinema City 5, I believe this is the worst movie theater I’ve ever attended. The now gutted Movies at Bayside would probably come in third. Someone above compared it to a “horrible Times Square theater before Disney took over”, but that’s an insult to those delightfully dilapidated fun houses which while dirty and uncared for at least had the charm of their age, history and faded beauty. This complex opened on the cheap and went downhill ever since, despite whatever overhauls might have taken place to install preview monitors and stereo sound. Many of the auditoriums are just long and narrow white boxes with low cielings and a center aisle. The last movie I saw here was “Pulp Fiction” and I swore the place off after that.

Korvettes is long gone… I only hope and pray that this dump will soon be gone as well.

It is no longer owned by Regal. It is now an independent which uses Lesser as a booking service. No major renovations have been done on that theatre. My mom says that it still looks the same when United Artists ran it. It is still a sevenplex. It has a dining section but theatres are all the same.

There are plenty of chains that do a shoddy job (or worse) of maintaining their theatres in general, but are there any chains that, in the opinion of anyone who’ll read this, do a good-to-great job of keeping their properties in excellent condition (i.e., sightlines, physical maintenance, projection quality, guest services, etc.)? My personal vote goes to Landmark Theatres. Through different ownerships, they’ve always represented, in my opinion, the ideal moviegoing experience in these modern times, certainly with the venues I’ve been to (the Sunshine; the Kendall Square Cinemas in Cambridge, Ma.; the Century Centre Cinemas in Chicago; and the NuArt in LA). What chain, if any, would earn your pull of the lever?

This is a dreadful cinema experience. The theatres have been allowed to run down horribly. Rips in carpeting, etc. Horrible, uncomfortable seating. Last movie I saw there was Chicago in 2003. There are six small theatres that make you realize why multiplexes had such a bad name in the 1980s, and one big theatre for the “hit.” Here’s what I wrote about it in the late 1990s.

It is a shame that this theatre has not once benefitted from any sort of renovation since it opened probably twenty years ago. Built during a time when multiplexes were openly contemptuous of the moviegoer, aging has made it the Hag of Multiplexes.

Like many multiplexes, there is one large auditorium, and then smaller ones. And then one very small one that is barely fit. A lot of this is to be expected. However, the Douglaston Movieworld also features ripped carpets barely held together with electrical tape, appalling rest rooms with horrible odors and no toilet paper, and an overall derilect appearance. If you are in the car already, it might not be a bad idea to keep going on the LIE in either direction in search of more suitable surroundings. The seats are also uncomfortable, as a recent screening of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil proved.

Considering the posh surroundings of Douglaston and Little Neck, you really feel like you are in a horrible Time Square theatre, before Disney took over and made everything “safe for families.”